You can't live long enough to make them all yourself. commenting on "overeducation" and "oversupply" of uni graduates : comments.
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![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
This could open up a rat's nest
(1) Universities have always proclaimed that their brief is not to prepare people for jobs, except in the overtly professional degrees like Medicine, Dentistry, Engineering, Commerce and Law - given the preponderance of privately educated sweet young things from the middle classes (are we allowed to use "bourgeois" these days?) in Arts/Law courses, I wonder about applying the professional label to present day Law courses.
(2) In these days of high taxation (not withstanding recent cuts in company tax rates) and the cult of user pays, both individuals and companies often ask what are they getting for their money and expect that one thing will be school/university leavers who are equipped for jobs. "If we are expected to hand our money to government, then the least government can do in return is pick up some of our training costs by supplying employable people through the education system".
(3) In the 80s and 90s, when things were not so good (according to private industry), companies cut their scholarship, graduate and apprenticeship schemes, as cost reduction measures. "Why should we give out apprenticeships, because they leave us and join our competitors after they have finished their apprenticeship?". In the case of apprenticeships, companies are now reaping the rewards of those measures - hence the lack of sympathy from many quarters when, for example, the mining industry bleats that it is being hampered by a lack of skilled labour and that it is all the fault of short-sighted governments.
(4) Most graduates are not ready for direct entry into the work-force - not into the globalised, "look out for yourself" workplace of 21st century Australia. Recurring complaints from employers are that new graduates "have excessive expectations/ambitions", "lack appropriate skills", "can't write/communicate to save their lives", "expect a recipe for everything", "want a computer program where they can click some check-boxes and hey-presto, there's the answer", "expect to be paid just to turnup", ad nauseum ...
(5) Some professions recognise that fresh graduates are unready for employment, so they put in place post-graduate training, eg PLT, CPA courses, residency in Medicine, IE membership.
(6) Lots of graduates end up working in areas far removed from their fields of study, eg. political science graduates as receptionists in hotels, environmental scientists in retail ...
(7) In 21st Century Australia, 17 is too young to make a decision about a future career, even if there will be 2 or 3 major changes/reskilling in career during their working lives. That may have been ok 40 or 50 years ago, but not now.
(8) In 21st Century Australia, 20 is too young to be entering the workforce as a graduate.
(9) Universities and employers should 'fess up and admit that 3 year degrees are next to useless for professional employment (it may be ok to have a 3 year BA if you are going into door to door mobile 'phone sales, ...).
(10) Universities should admit that many degrees will not lead to a "good job" - they are not employment prospect enhancers.
OMG, what a grab bag of points - I think I'm trying to say something here.
The BBs could assume that a degree (of any kind) led to enhanced employment prospects. We Gen Xers and Gen Yers do not have the luxury of that assumption. In 21st Century Australia, it is disturbingly easy to waste 4 years and accumulate a large HECS debt on a degree which will do nothing for your employment prospects. Since the Whitlam reforms of the early 1970s, it has been assumed that getting a degree is a "good thing" and necessary for career advancement, thus the push to make degree courses available to everyone and anyone who wanted to get one. The validity of that assumption is questionable.
Ok - I've used enough of your (and my) bandwidth.
mary
Re: This could open up a rat's nest
i agree with much of what you say, and would perhaps differ on a few points.
we can identify the problem, but what are we to do about it?
i have a mild disability that affects the way i interact and communicate with others. ironically, i am also highly gifted in verbal-lingustics (amongst others).
the problem, as i see it is, employers will not take the time to get to know me well enough to place me effectively. after all, why should they when there are many other qualified people out there who can do the job they offer without "accomodation". who cares if i miss out. according to the market ideology, if i had what the market wanted, i'd get a job. or to put it another way, i should be taking whatever job the market is prepared to give me. and, apparently that job is no job.
so, to celebrate being eminently qualified and capable, and having invested heavily in employable skills, but nevertheless unemployable, i'll have to keep looking for scraps.
but i am thinking of starting my own business. of course, that's not entirely encouraged by the way the "employment services" are funded and the way they're expected to help me. but, i suspect i'll be doing what i have to to pervert the system to my needs once again.
Re: This could open up a rat's nest
In general, given that I believe the whole Year 12/post-high-school issue is now a massive stuff-up, first requirement is across the board recognition that there is a major problem in present day post-high-school education/training/vocational preparation. Perhaps B Nelson recognises this, even if he lets himself get preoccupied with more ideological issues like VSU.
We are persevering with a model of an education system which has grown like topsy from what it was in the 1950s, but its basics haven't really changed, even though the employment environment now is dramatically more complex (and will be more so in the next 50 years). The notion of a job for life has gone, getting through a 40-50 year working life with a single set of primary skills/qualifications acquired when you were 18-22 will no longer be possible, and an individual's local employment environment can and will be affected by unpredictable actions and events in far off places (the butterfly effect brought into the job market).
As to your particular situation - I think you're in trouble. I'm guessing that you're in your early 30s, have done a variety of courses, have bounced from one job to another over the past 15 years, and don't believe yourself that you come across well at interviews. Since most employers have fuck all understanding of what those qualifications actually mean WRT what you have learned, what you can do and the alignment of your skills and personality with their requirements for an employee, they will usually rely upon how you are able to communicate and present at the interview, and what your prior employment history is. Bouncing from one job to another and from one course to another turns a lot of employers off.
Bugger of an answer, isn't it?
Innovative self-employment is a very real (and I think attractive) option for you, if you are prepared to bet your life and your future well-being on your cognitive and intellectual skills.
All the best,
mary